'Grand Concourse’ stars Cambridge actor Thomas Derrah

Friday

Mar 3, 2017 at 5:28 PMMar 3, 2017 at 5:49 PM

By R. Scott Reedy, Daily News Correspondent

Cambridge actor Thomas Derrah has played many different roles in his long career – including some 120 at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, where he was a founding member – but he says none have been exactly like his current one in “Grand Concourse,” a new drama by playwright Heidi Schreck now being given its New England premiere by Boston’s SpeakEasy Stage Company.

His character, Frog, a homeless man who writes joke books, is a frequent guest at the Bronx soup kitchen run by Shelley (Melinda Lopez), a Catholic nun and onetime college basketball star, struggling to find meaning in her life.

“Frog is an intelligent man, but his downfall was substance abuse. In his salad days, he was a product of the Vietnam War era. Whether or not he was a conscientious objector, I do not know,” said Derrah.

“What I do know is that he suffers from paranoid schizophrenia and when he goes off his meds, things get very bad for him. Generally, however, he is a very positive person – funny and social, and someone who enjoys life. I really like Frog. And as an actor, I like his depth. He is damaged and eccentric, but he is not self-pitying.”

And while Derrah, a graduate of the Yale School of Drama, may not have played a man like Frog before, he does know one.

“Through the years, I have befriended a fellow who is in and out of shelters. We don’t hang out together. Ours is more of a street friendship. I see him occasionally, however, and he’ll tell me a joke or a story. He is interested in the arts, too, so I used to get him tickets to the ART when I was there. He is a very kind man.”

Another person Derrah – who famously portrayed the late U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the late Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, and 21 other characters opposite actress Margaret Colin as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in the 1997 Broadway production of the Gip Hoppe comedy “Jackie: An American Life” – knows and likes is his current co-star Melinda Lopez. This marks the first time, however, that the SpeakEasy Stage veterans have appeared together in a play.

“Melinda and I have known each other for years. I’ve guest-lectured for her at Boston University and we’ve done readings together. Also, my husband, John Kuntz, and Melinda were both in the first Huntington Theatre Company playwriting program,” recalls Derrah of Lopez, a playwright as well as an actress who was seen last fall in her one-woman play “Mala” at Boston’s Emerson/Paramount Center. “She is a super person and a great actress. I’m glad we’re finally on stage together.”

Their characters will be sharing that stage with fellow soup kitchen habitués Oscar (Alejandro Simoes), a native of the Dominican Republic and former dental student now employed as a security guard, and Emma (Ally Dawson), a college dropout prone to erratic behavior.

“The four of them are a band of misfits. They’re all a little bit broken and trying to fix themselves. That includes Shelley, who is bit of a reluctant nun, questioning her faith. There is a lot in the play about crises of faith, but there are also a lot of surprises,” according to Derrah, who teaches at both Harvard and MIT and has appeared in the feature films “Mystic River” and “Pink Panther 2.”

“The piece is beautifully written, almost like a poem. It’s spare and succinct, brutal in parts, but with no unnecessary language. Where it ends up is very surprising and revelatory. It all makes sense, but it also delivers a cumulative blow to your solar plexus.”

To ensure that their depiction of a soup kitchen would be both authentic and respectful, the cast of “Grand Concourse,” the production’s director Bridget Kathleen O’Leary, and assistant stage manager Daryl A. Laurenza recently took a field trip.

“On February 23, we spent four hours prepping and serving what’s known as the Thursday Meal at Christ Church in Cambridge, part of the Harvard Square Churches Meal Program run by Laurie Howell and Judy Siemen. The program offers dignity and kindness to the homeless and the indigent. It is run beautifully and there’s a lot of friendship and respect between the regulars,” says Derrah.

“We were six of the 20 volunteers that night and we made chicken cacciatore for about 80 to 100 guests. It was a nice thing to do for the community and it was also a very good experience for our company.”

R. Scott Reedy is a freelance writer. Follow us on Twitter @WickedLocalArts.